Garden Version 2.0

Oliver had outgrown his slide (and the wood had split!)  

Ive had an extremely busy week and haven't stopped. Its been hectic at work and at home Ive been sorting the garden out for Oliver. About 3 years ago we transformed the garden into a safe place for Oliver to play all year round, with artificial grass and his own play area. I've not really done much to it, especially last year with all the weather and it had become a bit of a mess. Oliver had outgrown his playground and the weather had hammered the paving and paintwork

Oliver and I clearing the garden

Cleared out and ready for a paint job.

Oliver came out to help me make the swing.

So I set about it this week, hoping to get Oliver something to play on for his break at Easter. Weve also decided to convert the summer house into a den for Oliver so he can invite his friends round when the weather gets better. Im hoping to put an old TV and retro games console in there for him (and me ha ha). Oliver helped me for a while, putting all of his old garden toys in a pile for the skip, they were so bad we couldn't even give them away.


Oliver is really into Minecraft and made me laugh. He said that the garden was having an "Update" from version 1.0 to 2.0. I love the way he described this and that's what I'm going to call it from now on. He came to help me set the swing up and we had bought a frammock for him (its a hammock in a frame and will be good for him to chill out in. We just managed to get it up before dark and Oliver had a quick test swing. Im going to put some lighting up this week and get the rest of the garden sorted between storms!!

Garden V2.0 : A lick of paint, some artificial grass and a swing set. Looks cool!

 So that's been it all week and I've only managed a few runs after a racing hard at the weekend.

Running:

Tuesday 22nd March 

6.83 miles / 52.18 min / 7.39 min mile avg

A tempo pace run around my usual loop.

Wednesday 23rd March

7.11 miles / 49.04 min / 6.54 min mile avg

Another fast pace run around Walney

Friday 25th March

16.01 miles / 2:07:36 hrs / 7.58 min miles

My mate Paul is doing the Manchester Marathon in a couple of weeks time. He asked me if I would pace him today at 8 min mile pace in preparation for his race. We set out early and picked the flattest run we could come up with to simulate the race. It was a really enjoyable run on a beautiful morning and Paul hit the pace really well and maintained it throughout, even though we had been racing the past weekend and had tired legs. Hes going to smash his goals in the marathon, I'm sure of it.

Saturday and Sunday
I was working Saturday night until late and decided to have a couple of rest days after a hard week of running. I wanted to concentrate on a new training plan for the coming months. All will be explained in my next blog.....